The Forbidden Worlds Of Haruki Murakami

In an “other world” composed of language—it could be a fathomless Martian well, a labyrinthine hotel or forest—a narrative unfolds, and with it the experiences, memories, and dreams that constitute reality for Haruki Murakami’s characters and readers alike. Memories and dreams in turn conjure their magical counterparts—people without names or pasts, fantastic animals, half-animals, and talking machines that traverse the dark psychic underworld of this writer’s extraordinary fiction. Fervently acclaimed worldwide, Murakami’s wildly imaginative work in many ways remains a mystery, its worlds within worlds uncharted territory. Finally in this book readers will find a map to the strange realm that grounds virtually every aspect of Murakami’s writing. A journey through the enigmatic and baffling innermost mind, a metaphysical dimension where Murakami’s most bizarre scenes and characters lurk, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami exposes the psychological and mythological underpinnings of this other world. Matthew Carl Strecher shows how these considerations color Murakami’s depictions of the individual and collective soul, which constantly shift between the tangible and intangible but in this literary landscape are undeniably real. Through these otherworldly depths The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami also charts the writer’s vivid “inner world,” whether unconscious or underworld (what some Japanese critics call achiragawa, or “over there”), and its connectivity to language. Strecher covers all of Murakami’s work—including his efforts as a literary journalist—and concludes with the first full-length close reading of the writer’s newest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

In an OC other worldOCO composed of languageOCoit could be a fathomless Martian well, a labyrinthine hotel or forestOCoa narrative unfolds, and with it the experiences, memories, and dreams that constitute reality for Haruki MurakamiOCOs characters and readers alike. Memories and dreams in turn conjure their magical counterpartsOCopeople without names or pasts, fantastic animals, half-animals, and talking machines that traverse the dark psychic underworld of this writerOCOs extraordinary fiction. Fervently acclaimed worldwide, MurakamiOCOs wildly imaginative work in many ways remains a mystery, its worlds within worlds uncharted territory. Finally in this book readers will find a map to the strange realm that grounds virtually every aspect of MurakamiOCOs writing. A journey through the enigmatic and baffling innermost mind, a metaphysical dimension where MurakamiOCOs most bizarre scenes and characters lurk, The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami exposes the psychological and mythological underpinnings of this other world. Matthew Carl Strecher shows how these considerations color MurakamiOCOs depictions of the individual and collective soul, which constantly shift between the tangible and intangible but in this literary landscape are undeniably real. Through these otherworldly depths The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami also charts the writerOCOs vivid OC inner world, OCO whether unconscious or underworld (what some Japanese critics call achiragawa, or OC over thereOCO), and its connectivity to language. Strecher covers all of MurakamiOCOs workOCoincluding his efforts as a literary journalistOCoand concludes with the first full-length close reading of the writerOCOs newest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. "

In this hyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive novel, Japan’s most popular (and controversial) fiction writer hurtles into the consciousness of the West. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World draws readers into a narrative particle accelerator in which a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is simultaneously cooler than zero and unaffectedly affecting, a hilariously funny and deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Haruki Murakami, a global literary phenomenon, has said that he started writing fiction as a means of self-therapy. What he has not discussed as much is what he needed self-therapy for. This book argues that by understanding more about why Murakami writes, and by linking this with the question of how he writes, readers can better understand what he writes. Murakami's fiction, in other words, can be read as a search for self-therapy. In five chapters which explore Murakami's fourteen novels to date, this book argues that there are four prominent therapeutic threads woven through Murakami's fiction that can be traced back to his personal traumas - most notably Murakami's falling out with his late father and the death of a former girlfriend – and which have also transcended them in significant ways as they have been transformed into literary fiction. The first thread looks at the way melancholia must be worked through for mourning to occur and healing to happen; the second thread looks at how symbolic acts of sacrifice can help to heal intergenerational trauma; the third thread looks at the way people with avoidant attachment styles can begin to open themselves up to love again; the fourth thread looks at how individuation can manifest as a response to nihilism. Meticulously researched and written with sensitivity, the result is a sophisticated exploration of Murakami's published novels as an evolving therapeutic project that will be of great value to all scholars of Japanese literature and culture.

As a spokesman for disaffected youth of the post-1960s, Murakami Haruki has become one of the most important voices in contemporary Japanese literature, and he has gained a following in the United States through translations of his works. In Dances with Sheep, Matthew Strecher examines Murakami’s fiction—and, to a lesser extent, his nonfiction—for its most prevalent structures and themes. Strecher also delves into the paradoxes in Murakami’s writings that confront critics and casual readers alike. Murakami writes of “serious” themes yet expresses them in a relatively uncomplicated style that appeals to high school students as well as scholars; and his fictional work appears to celebrate the pastiche of postmodern expression, yet he rejects the effects of the postmodern on contemporary culture as dangerous. Strecher’s methodology is both historical and cultural as he utilizes four distinct yet interwoven approaches to analyze Murakami’s major works: the writer’s “formulaic” structure with serious themes; his play with magical realism; the intense psychological underpinnings of his literary landscape; and his critique of language and its capacity to represent realities, past and present. Dances with Sheep links each of these approaches with Murakami’s critical focus on the fate of individual identity in contemporary Japan. The result is that the simplicity of the Murakami hero, marked by lethargy and nostalgia, emerges as emblematic of contemporary humankind, bereft of identity, direction, and meaning. Murakami’s fiction is reconstructed in Dances with Sheep as a warning against the dehumanizing effects of late-model capitalism, the homogenization of the marketplace, and the elimination of effective counterculture in Japan.

How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? A "fascinating" look at the "business of bringing a best-selling novelist to a global audience" (The Atlantic)―and a “rigorous” exploration of the role of translators and editors in the creation of literary culture (The Paris Review). Thirty years ago, when Haruki Murakami’s works were first being translated, they were part of a series of pocket-size English-learning guides released only in Japan. Today his books can be read in fifty languages and have won prizes and sold millions of copies globally. How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? This book tells one key part of the story. Its cast includes an expat trained in art history who never intended to become a translator; a Chinese American ex-academic who never planned to work as an editor; and other publishing professionals in New York, London, and Tokyo who together introduced a pop-inflected, unexpected Japanese voice to the wider literary world. David Karashima synthesizes research, correspondence, and interviews with dozens of individuals—including Murakami himself—to examine how countless behind-the-scenes choices over the course of many years worked to build an internationally celebrated author’s persona and oeuvre. His careful look inside the making of the “Murakami Industry" uncovers larger questions: What role do translators and editors play in framing their writers’ texts? What does it mean to translate and edit “for a market”? How does Japanese culture get packaged and exported for the West?

The new novel—a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan—from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has achieved incredible popularity in his native country and world-wide as well as rising critical acclaim. Murakami, in addition to receiving most of the major literary awards in Japan, has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize. Yet, his relationship with the Japanese literary community proper (known as the Bundan) has not been a particularly friendly one. One of Murakami’s central and enduring themes is a persistent warning not to suppress our fundamental desires in favor of the demands of society at large. Murakami’s writing over his career reveals numerous recurring motifs, but his message has also evolved, creating a catalogue of works that reveals Murakami to be a challenging author. Many of those challenges lie in Murakami’s blurring of genre as well as his rich blending of Japanese and Western mythologies and styles—all while continuing to offer narratives that attract and captivate a wide range of readers. Murakami is, as Ōe Kenzaburō once contended, not a “Japanese writer” so much as a global one, and as such, he merits a central place in the classroom in order to confront readers and students, but to be challenged as well. Reading, teaching, and studying Murakami serves well the goal of rethinking this world. It will open new lines of inquiry into what constitutes national literatures, and how some authors, in the era of blurred national and cultural boundaries, seek now to transcend those boundaries and pursue a truly global mode of expression.